Some work platforms give you fairly mundane tasks to do which pay a few cents a piece. These are commonly called “Turk” jobs after the original mTurk launched by Amazon years ago. The work is fairly easy, usually only taking less than a minute to complete a task, but the pay is fairly low, making it necessary to do a lot of tasks before making significant money.
If you’re willing to take on some risk and have the heart of a true hustler, you can make extra money online doing commission-only sales for startups and other businesses. While you won’t be getting a regular salary, with the right sales strategies and skills as an inside sales rep, you can make decent money for each sale you bring in. And because you’ll most likely be working with startups, if you can negotiate a little equity you could profit big time if you're pitching a solid product and the startup succeeds.

Passive Income: While you’ll still need to do some light work like processing orders, marketing and customer service, it’s a pretty passive way to make money from home. Importing products from AliExpress, Oberlo Suppliers or Oberlo Verified Suppliers can be done in one click. And so can processing orders. Most of the other money making ideas on this list require trading time for money to make money fast. You’ll be able to do the work casually on evenings and weekends making it perfect for those who still have full-time jobs, new parents or caregivers.

According to a 2006 ACNielsen study commissioned by eBay, 1.3 million individuals used the site as a primary or secondary source of income worldwide. The figure for the United States was around half as many. But the study didn't parse out how much money each of those 1.3 million individuals make, or how many of them use eBay as their "primary" as opposed to "secondary" source of income [source: Gross].
Affiliate marketing is the process by which you can get paid for people buying or trying products and services through personalized links on marketing platforms. If you already have a website, it does not take long to get approved on affiliate marketing networks. All you have to do once you are approved is add the custom links they will give you to your site and let the money start coming to you. Learn more about affiliate marketing.
18. CraigsList – Some things don’t ship very well. Other things may make you feel uncomfortable to sell to someone across the country. Anytime you’re selling a large item or something you just don’t want to ship, Craigslist is a great place to go. It’s simple to list your item (again, take good pictures!). If you don’t like the idea of putting your phone number out there, the interested individual can send you a message to your inbox without even getting your email address.
Avoid sending copy and paste applications. For example, if you love ‘writing about fitness and relationships’ but are applying for a writing position at a tech company, why would someone want to hire you? You won’t be considered. Recruiters can easily spot a copy and paste application. After all, they lack the specific details that’ll land you the role. Cater each application you write to the brand you’re applying to.
Money can be earned and spent, saved and pilfered, invested and wasted. Not time. That's why time is far more valuable than money. The point? When you lack the luxury of time, making money online (or offline) can seem like an impossible task. How are you supposed to do that when you're working at a life-sucking nine-to-five job? While the stability of full-time employment might allow most to sleep well at night, it doesn't empower your creative juices to search for new income-producing strategies.

If you design a wildly popular app (which is harder than it sounds), you might be pleasantly surprised with the income they generate. Offering one or more apps at the iTunes or Android app store gives your creations wide exposure to prospects. And income can be generated by charging for the app, displaying in-app ads, or charging for in-app features and upgrades.

If you’re serious about making money selling things online, it’s pretty much impossible to not recommend Shopify. The platform gives you everything you need to get your online store up and running in less than a day including a custom domain, beautiful templates (so you don’t need design skills), secure payment options, and they can even take care of marketing and shipping for you. Whether you’re promoting your own products, designs, or curating other products for people in your niche, Shopify is the best option for powering your online store.
Once you have that problem or need nailed, the next step is to validate that idea and make sure you’ve actually got customers who will pay for it. This means building a minimum viable product, getting objective feedback from real customers, incorporating updates, testing the market for demand, and getting pricing feedback to ensure there’s enough of a margin between your costs and what consumers are willing to pay.
If you have an eBay account, a arbitrage business can be good way to make money by selling items at a higher price than they cost elsewhere on the internet. Once a product is sold, you use the money you get from your buyer to purchase the item from another site at a lower price, setting the shipping address as theirs. There may not be many opportunities to do this as there were in the past, but those who keep a good eye on their chosen niche can still make a profit.
Drive for Uber or Lyft: If you're in a locale where you can find Uber or Lyft (or even one of the many competitors around the world such as China's Didi), you could easily make a respectable income. The hours are flexible and you can work as you see fit, making it perfect even if you currently have full-time employment but are looking to make some money on the side.
Those who are good with artsy projects could benefit from having an Etsy account and selling their projects online. The website is set up to be a mix of eBay and Pinterest, appealing to those who like craft-type goods that are usually handmade. The top tier of Etsy sellers regularly bring in five figures a month, making art projects their full time job.
Infomercials that promise quick and easy riches online oversimplify the realities of the e-commerce marketplace. Dave Espino's "Auctions for Income," a book and DVD training program that promises to teach customers how to make easy money selling on eBay, has received an F rating by the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau for making "unfounded" promises of large sums of money to be made with minimum effort [source: Better Business Bureau]. Jeff Paul's "Shortcuts to Internet Millions," another program that promises income in the hundreds of thousands per week through Internet sales and marketing, has also received an F from the BBB [source: Better Business Bureau]. There are legitimate trainers and consultants who will help you set up an online store on eBay or elsewhere, but they don't make such grand promises.
Great article, I have tried a few over the years. I had a side business cleaning offices for years. It did great, but I hated never being able to take more than 3-4 days vacation, so I eventually gave up. I tried MTurk, but if you multiplied my earnings on an hourly basis, it was a little over $6/hr. My blog is much worse, probably less than $0.25/hr.
Also called print on demand, this method of passive income works differently than, say, renting out real estate or playing the stock market. The overhead is extremely low—sellers don’t have to worry about storing any inventory or making physical items. Companies like Teespring, Redbubble, and Merch by Amazon have sprung up this decade to fuel the passive income industry. Their sole function is to handle the logistics of printing and shipping while paying out design royalties to people like Zubia, whose bestsellers have said things like “Awesome Since 1978” and “Born in Chicago.”
He often challenges his audience to decide, individually, what constitutes a “rich life.” Sometimes that does mean high incomes from high-powered jobs, but sometimes it means something else. The ability to make ends meet working very-part-time hours so you have more time for your family. Being able to outsource some of life’s drudgery (like cooking or cleaning) so you can spend more time doing things you value. Having the flexibility to go to the gym at 3pm. Being able to give generously.
To cash in online you need to be a game-changer. When Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook, there was nothing like it. He is now worth $17.5 billion according to recent Forbes valuations. Drew Houston saw money to be made in online storage, and co-founded Dropbox, the web-based tool that hit $240 million in revenue in 2011. Eric Lefkofsky spotted the potential in Groupon and gave $1 million to CEO and founder Andrew Mason. This year, Lefkofsky made the Forbes Billionaires list with a net worth of $2.9 billion. There are still fortunes to be made online, and we have found a few ways to do so.
Mention what you bring to the table. When I first applied to write for Oberlo, I mentioned how I worked in ecommerce for four years as an entrepreneur and in a 9 to 5 role at an ecommerce company. My experience on a content team was also brought up. And my 9 years experience in marketing. I had also already been working on my Oberlo dropshipping store as I had been using Shopify for a year at that point. Having a writing sample in a niche isn’t enough. You also need to have the experience to write about that niche. Mention every little detail of what you’ve done prior to writing. Niche experience is important.
Alibaba is a Chinese eCommerce store that matches Chinese suppliers with buyers all over the world. Prices are extremely cheap, providing the possibility of large profits. However, with the potential profits comes more risk. As you are dealing with suppliers in China, if the quality of the product that arrives isn’t up to standard there is little that you can do about it.
The music industry might not be as strong as it was in the 80s, but there are still plenty of ways to make money online as a musician. Sites like SoundBetter let you sell your services as a songwriter, producer, or session musician to thousands of customers a month. While Musicbed, Music Vine, Marmoset, and SongFreedom are perfect for licensing your music to TV shows, movies, and web series.
However, if you're looking for realistic ways you can start earning money online now, then it really truly does boil down to seven paths you can take towards profit. Some will provide you with immediate results, helping you to address your basic monthly necessities such as rent, utilities and groceries, while others have the potential to transform your life by revolutionizing your finances in the long term.
Net worth is probably the most important financial number you can track. It’s a simple way to see your financial life with a few basic calculations. Every month income comes in, and expenses go out to pay bills and rent. If after all your expenses are paid if you still have some money left over – that’s great. Now you have money to invest and grow.

Market your course: The beauty of using a course to make money online is that you can continue to sell it for as long as you’d like. Look for niche communities on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Reddit that might benefit from your content. Guest post on relevant blogs and sites. Look for anywhere you might be able to get in front of the right people. With just a few hours a month you can continue to generate sales.

Not all direct sales is about your online presence, though. There’s a big element of in-person interaction, which why direct sales can be so much fun for so many people. Jennifer Tegnerud is one woman who has a really interesting direct sales success story. She quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom and then decided that she needed to do something “grown up” to keep in touch with her “pre-mom” self and make staying home more feasible. What that turned into is a fascinating success story that you can read about right here. Jennifer works part-time hours as a Stella & Dot Stylist to make a full-time income doing something creative and exciting, that really taps into her strengths and interests.
YouTube has launched the career of many a musician, including Justin Bieber, the teen pop sensation who earned $108 million in the past two years. But have you heard of Karmin, the pop duo who signed a million dollar record deal after their Chris Brown “Look At Me Now” cover went viral? The duo, real-life couple Amy Heidemann and Nick Noonan, hit it big when the video gained over 68 million views after its upload in April 2011, propelling Karmin to a million dollar deal with label heavyweight Epic Records just a month later. "Brokenhearted," the lead single from their debut album, has now gone platinum.

Every year, hundreds of millions of documents are notarized in the United States: wills, mortgages, citizenship forms, handgun applications. While for decades, this has all been done in person, there is a budding crop of sites that allow notaries to take their services online. If you’re already a notary, you can sell your services online. Or, if you want to get started, check out the National Notary’s checklist for becoming a certified notary.

If you have a background in a specific field, you may find there is a demand for writing industry papers in your area of expertise. For example, there are often adverts for doctors, lawyers, nutritionists, and business experts from particular niches, to write white papers on different subject areas. These are well paid jobs that you will need to stake your reputation on, but that can often be worked on from the comfort of your own home.
To get started with Amazon affiliate marketing you will need to sign up with Amazon Affiliates. Then subtly market products on your site that are relevant to your niche and will be of interest to your audience. Make sure you only endorse high-quality products. If your visitors make a purchase on your recommendation but are not impressed with the item, you could quickly lose followers.
What does that mean for you? It means Nielsen will pay you $50 a year to keep their app on your favorite internet browsing device. The app itself collects statistics on your internet usage anonymously, so you never have to worry about any data being linked to you. And the best part is, the app takes up barely any space and doesn’t slow down your phone or tablet at all!